I made two trips to Costco today; one to pick up a batch of VHS tapes, and one to return a mini-stereo whose tuner was truly putrid (it received at least two FM stations simultaneously, which wasn’t quite what I was looking for). Both times, the store was fairly uncrowded; that won’t be the case on Friday, I suspect.

I was very pleased with my experience in returning the mini-stereo; I had bought it a couple of months ago but hadn’t gotten around to trying it until last weekend, after the new carpet had been installed and we were reloading our bedroom. Since it had been more than 30 days, and since I’d managed to lose my receipt, I really didn’t expect to be able to return the unit, or if they took it back, I expected a hassle. I was wrong — no hassle. There was one small problem, though — since I didn’t have my receipt, they couldn’t credit my Amex card; they had to give me my refund in cash.

And I’ll bet the unit doesn’t go back on the shelf with a “tested by an earlier customer for your convenience” sticker, unlike Fry’s.

Happy Thanksgiving

The pecan pie’s already made; the turkey is in the refrigerator, along with a ton of salad and side dishes. Tomorrow may not be the best day for my diet!

Jeff Klepper, a well-known Jewish singer/songwriter, performed at Shir Hadash a few months ago. As is typical at such a performance, he was selling CDs; his latest, “Live in Concert”, wasn’t yet available, but it would be mailed when it was ready. No problem; I wrote a check and forgot all about it.

Cut to today: a padded envelope arrived at my house, with handwritten addresses; the return address appeared to be “Zahar”, with a post office box in West Roxbury, Mass. I couldn’t think of anyone in West Roxbury who’d be sending me anything, especially something in a padded envelope with extra tape. It looked suspicious. In fact, it came awfully close to meeting the FBI’s profile of suspicious packages.

I stared at the package for a while; I tried Google searches for Zahar and Roxbury, and for the PO Box number. No dice.

So I finally did what the FBI recommends — I called the police. The officer who came out said that they’d gotten lots of calls like mine last fall, and that they still get a few every month, and that they’d much rather have someone call than take a chance. But after he’d looked at the envelope, he was fairly sure it would turn out to be innocuous, so he suggested we go outside and open it.

He opened it, and a CD came out. It was Jeff Klepper’s “Live in Concert”. And then I realized that the return address was probably “Zohar” rather than “Zahar”.

I haven’t played the CD yet, but I expect to enjoy it!

Jeff Klepper replies:

David,

This is a very funny story. But seriously, I do apologize for the
unintended inconvenience. You were right to be cautious.

Last Monday was a comedy of errors so your story doesn’t surprise me.
After being promised they would be ready on Friday, but sorry, no go, and
biting my nails over the weekend, I had just rushed from the pressing plant
and wanted to get the CDs in the mail since I had promised them by the 20th.
So my daughter and I addressed them at a Peet’s Coffee, then we realized we
didn’t have a stapler and begged the post office folks to lend me their
scotch tape. I guess I only missed by a day. The PO Box is for my record
company, Zohar Records – yes, printed labels would be a very good idea.
Thanks for the suggestion.

Enjoy the music. And now, like the folk-tale Joseph The Tailor, you have a
story of your very own to tell.

Shabbat Shalom

Usually, we start the rainy season with some heavy drizzle, just enough to get the roads slick and dangerous. The real rain doesn’t happen until later in the season.

Not this year — our first real rain of the season has been a good, windy storm. Power went out for a few seconds a few minutes ago, but it came back quickly and I was able to reestablish connectivity — dunno how long it’ll last. (Power, not connectivity.)

Our floors are partially done — they were supposed to get the third coat of polyurethane this morning, but the refinishers weren’t able to come before we had to leave for work, so I guess it’ll happen tomorrow. I don’t think letting the stuff dry an extra day is a bad idea, and it’s kinda nice not having the house smell so bad!

We had very light traffic for Halloween, maybe ten sets of kids, perhaps two dozen kids total; we have lots of left-over candy, only some of which is worth eating (Jeffrey convinced us to order some “interesting” candy from Oriental Trading Company, and it’s not geared to adult tastes). I stopped at the Post Office this morning to pick up my Hanukkah stamps, and the people in front of me were all saying that they’d had very few visitors, too.

The smoke detector people aren’t kidding when they tell you to change your batteries when you change your clocks in the fall. I decided to do it “later” and so we were rudely awakened at 4am yesterday by the sound of the smoke detector outside our bedroom chirping for a new feeding of electrons. I changed that one immediately, and then replaced the batteries in the other four last night (I’m not sure why a three-bedroom, one-story house needs five smoke detectors, but that’s what we’ve got), so I should be ok for another year.

This weekend, we have to get the living room and dining room completely cleared out (Diane’s been packing stuff all week, but now it’s time to unbolt the china cabinet and move the furniture). New window coverings should arrive in about two weeks, and we had the carpet installer in yesterday to measure our room and the hallways. It’s going to look very nice when we’re done, but getting there is a messy prospect.

There’s also the Junior Youth Group Monte Carlo night on Saturday (I’m a dealer and chaperone), Book Group at the Temple Sunday afternoon, and dinner with friends on Sunday night. And we’re three weeks behind on watching Firefly, two weeks behind on Nero Wolfe, and one week behind on Smallville and Enterprise. We’ve also started TiVoing Monk, I haven’t done last week’s New York Times crossword puzzle yet, and I still have tons of books that I bought at WorldCon. It may not be the most restful weekend.